Tennessee History: How Newspaper Ads Grew a State

By Michelle Shocklee

When we moved to Tennessee in October 2017, we didn't know a lot about the history of our new home. We'd simply accepted a job far, far from our people in Texas, but we were excited to embrace the adventure God put in front of us. Little did I know the history of this place would completely captivate me. So much so, my new historical novel releasing in Fall 2020 from Tyndale House Publishers is set right here in Tennessee. It's a time-slip story, and I can't wait to share it with you! Stay tuned!

One of the more interesting tidbits about Tennessee's history is what happened after the war of 1812. A settlement named Nashville had already been established on the Cumberland River, and the territory had already become a state in 1796. Lead by Andrew Jackson, the U.S. government proceeded to purchase land west of the Tennessee River and east of the Mississippi River from the Chickasaw Indian nation. Newspapers of that era referred to it as the Chickasaw Purchase, and after it occurred, the Chickasaw Indians relocated to present-day Mississippi. With land now available to white settlers, towns were needed. But instead of developing naturally with families moving in and starting a settlement, these towns were created by investors. Wealthy investors, usually businessmen from larger eastern cities, hired surveyors to scout the untamed land, relying on their expertise to find the best locations for a population to grow. Once an area had been chosen, roads, lots, and a town square were plotted out.

An ad from the Jackson Gazette, July 9, 1825.

But now what? What good is a plotted-out town without citizens to make it their home?

That's where newspaper ads came in. These ads not only advertised residential and business lots for sale in a town that didn't actually exist, but they made the new town and surrounding area sound like a settler's paradise. "Never-failing water," "excellent land," and "one of the healthiest counties in the Western District" described the brand new town of Sommerville in an 1825 ad. In August 1824, the Jackson Gazette informed readers that “on Monday the 20th of September next, the Commissioners of the town of Lexington will proceed to sell the balance of the lots remaining unsold in said town."

The ads worked. People flocked to western Tennessee, creating one of America's first land rushes. Newspapers like the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette reported in July 1820 that “the town of Memphis has been laid off by the proprietors on the Chickasaw Bluff, on the east bank of the Mississippi, 224 miles below the mouth of the Ohio. The site of this town is believed to be the handsomest on the Mississippi below St. Louis.” Interestingly, the man responsible for the ad, John Overton, was from Nashville. He later built The Maxwell House Hotel, the largest and most prestigious hotel in the city at the time. I particularly like the fact that he called potential residents of the town "adventurers"

and truly wanted them to make Memphis their permanent home.

An ad in the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, July 3, 1824, 

Most of the towns founded by advertisements are still in existence today. People came from eastern states as well as Europe to settle in the beautiful, hilly land. One town, however, did not fair as well. The Memphis Advertiser ran ads for a Tipton County community called Randolph in the fall of 1827. Located on the Mississippi River about 40 miles upstream from Memphis, Randolph had hotels, a newspaper, and a thriving cotton trade within only a few years. From its early years, however, Randolph was doomed. An 1834 cholera epidemic was so bad that, as the Nashville newspaper reported, “It was with great difficulty that coffins, even of the coarsest material, could be procured to bury the dead — so sudden and fatal were the attacks.” Randolph later lost out to Memphis for the U.S. mail route and the railroads.Today there is little left of the town of Randolph.

When we packed up our U-Haul two years ago and drove away from Texas where we'd lived for 35+ years, I felt a little of what those early settlers must have experienced so long ago. I can well imagine the excitement and expectations that swirled through them as they loaded their wagons and moved to the beautiful but unknown state of Tennessee. I like to think I'm a bit of an adventurer too!

Your turn! Have you ever moved to a new town, city, state, country? Tell me about it!

Michelle Shocklee is the award-winning author of The Planter's Daughter and The Widow of Rose Hill. Her historical novella set in the New Mexico Territory is included in The Mail-Order Brides Collection. Michelle and her husband of thirty-two years make their home in Tennessee. Connect with her at www.MichelleShocklee.com.

THE PLANTER'S DAUGHTER


Adella Rose Ellis knows her father has plans for her future, but she longs for the freedom to forge her own destiny. When the son of Luther Ellis's longtime friend arrives on the plantation to work as the new overseer, Adella can't help but fall for his charm and captivating hazel eyes. But a surprise betrothal to an older man, followed by a devastating revelation, forces Adella to choose the path that will either save her family's future or endanger the lives of the people most dear to her heart.

Seth Brantley never wanted to be an overseer. After a runaway slave shot him, ending his career as a Texas Ranger and leaving him with a painful limp, a job on the plantation owned by his father's friend is just what he needs to bide his time before heading to Oregon where a man can start over. What he hadn't bargained on was falling in love with the planter's daughter or finding that everything he once believed about Negroes wasn't true. Amid secrets unraveling and the hatching of a dangerous plan, Seth must become the very thing he'd spent the past four years chasing down: an outlaw. https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Shocklee/e/B01MYD4TRE/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

I Was Born In Slavery - A Slave's Oral History

This month my good friend Michelle Shocklee, who loves to write historical fiction and has her debut full-length novel releasing this month, is my guest blogger. I will be back next month with more tales of the historical Midwest and other Midwestern spots.

By Michelle Shocklee

As I set out to write The Planter’s Daughter, an antebellum novel set on a Texas cotton plantation in 1859, I took great care in researching the setting, the time period, and the events that unfold throughout the story. Even though I’ve lived in Texas for more than thirty years, there was much I didn’t know about the Lone Star State’s history after the Alamo and prior to the Civil War. For instance, I was surprised to learn how many plantations existed during that time period, with some like Liendo Plantation (http://liendoplantation.com/liendo/), still standing today. Although cotton wasn’t king in Texas just yet, it was a money-making crop for many planters. And as we all know, slave labor was key.

With that in mind, I was especially concerned with accuracy when it came to telling the slaves’ accounts. Their stories, I felt, needed special attention in order for readers to truly see slavery on a Texas plantation. I didn’t want to simply use generalities about slavery in the south. That’s when I discovered a book titled I Was Born in Slavery: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Texas.

In 1936, with the Great Depression raging, the government established the Federal Writers’ Project, with one notable project being the Slave Narrative Collection. Out-of-work writers were dispatched across the South to interview former slaves, all of whom were by then in their 80s, 90s, and 100s. Over 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs were documented and are now archived in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Some of the stories have found their way into print, like those in I Was Born in Slavery.

The writers/interviewers took great care to preserve the former slaves’ idiom, feeling it was as important to preserve the subject’s manner of speech as it was to preserve what they said. I used that dialect when writing dialog. I also used many of the former slaves’ names as a sort of tribute to the real people who lived and died as Texas slaves. Many of the scenes in The Planter’s Daughter involving slaves are based on true events recorded in the narratives. One in particular is told by Millie Williams, an eighty-six year old woman who was born in Tennessee but was sold when she was seven-years old and was eventually brought to Texas. Millie’s description of being in the cotton fields when a patrol rides by—or patterrollers, as the slaves called the men on horseback charged with catching runaway slaves—is included in my book. The murmuring of “patter the pat, patter the pat” served as a warning to all the slaves and was passed from field to field.

One of the interviewees, Andy J. Anderson, states he was born on a plantation in Williamson County, Texas. This was an important piece of information for me to discover, because Williamson County is the setting for The Planter’s Daughter. Mr. Anderson’s own testimony gave my story’s location the authenticity it needed. James Boyd was 107 years old when he was interviewed. Can you imagine all he witnessed in those many years? He and another former slave, Lu Lee, gave descriptions of plantation life so vivid that I could almost see

Anderson and Minerva Edwards

the fields and the quarter in my imagination. Anderson and Minerva Edwards (pictured) were slaves on adjoining plantations in Rusk County. Their stories inspired me to create a married couple, Moses and Harriet, who must deal with the separation of living on different plantations. Anderson, I’m happy to say, became a Baptist preacher after emancipation and they raised sixteen children.

I Was Born in Slavery changed my book. It changed me as a writer and as a person. Long after The Planter’s Daughter is gathering dust on the shelves, a little orange book with a smiling old gentleman on the cover will, I am certain, continue to draw me to it, almost as though I can hear one of the former slaves say, “I was born in slavery. Let me tell you about it.”

Have you ever had a research book or some other resource impact you so deeply, you knew you would never be the same?

I Was Born in Slavery: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Texas, Edited by Andrew Waters,     John F. Blair, Publisher, 2003

Born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Michelle Shocklee is a Rocky Mountain girl at heart. But after living in Texas the past thirty years with her tall Texan husband, she has grown to truly appreciate the Lone Star State's rugged beauty. Her family lived in Williamson County, the setting for her debut novel. The Planter's Daughter, for more than twenty years. She and her husband currently live and work on a 400-acre ranch in the Texas Hill Country where they can often be found spoiling llamas, sheep, and chickens. She is a contributing author in numerous Chicken Soup for the Soul books, magazine articles, and authors her personal blog, Life Along the Way.